Lene of The Seated View has just posted a wonderful entry entitled Thoughts of Pain & What Comes With It. I encourage you to read the whole thing, but here is the bit that moved me the most:
Chronic pain teaches you that pain isn’t the worst thing that can happen. Not living your life is the worst thing that can happen. And so, you develop filters that mask the pain, block your perception of it and get on with your life. I once tested this – convinced that making a cup of tea in my microwave didn’t hurt, I decided to pay attention and discovered that it indeed did hurt, but on the days where I have adequate pain control, isn’t loud enough to make it through the filter. One of my favourite barriers to pain is the fun filter – you’re out, with friends, dancing, talking or whatever floats your boat and you are fine. Absolutely fine. You’re so fine that you may stay out having fun for longer than you should, but you ignore this, because the music is playing or you are about an hours worth of debate away from solving the world’s problems. It is not until you come home and close the front door behind you that the fun filter abruptly falls away and in a nanosecond, you go from an entirely manageable level of pain to wanting to curl up in a fetal position, whimpering in a corner. It usually takes days to recover from something like that, but what you quickly learn is that it’s worth it.
That is not only 100% true in general, it’s also exactly what is going on right now. I spent all weekend getting up in the wee hours, sitting outside in the 27F cold for over an hour each day waiting for trains and buses, having a truly fabulous time at the feltmaking course — and then I came home and SPLAT! I had rubbed my hands so raw (and bloody) that touching anything was excruciating agony. I can’t type or move or even cough without high levels of pain. I laid down for a nap at 6 pm and woke at 6 am. I’m gonna be paying for this all week. And it was worth it.
But it’s going to be a few days before I can type enough to do justice to my writeup of the course, so I’m afraid that you shall have to be patient. As shall I, as t says I can’t wet felt again until my hands heal up. And I have about 20 hours of sleep to squeeze into this week else my body will not be as forgiving as I insist it must be. After all, the Stitch & Creative Craft expo is next week, so I’ve got to rest up! (Bunnies to pet there, ya know..)